Chapter 17
The Razor’s Edge
It was like old home week when I went to work at Attica. I ran into Chuck and James in C Block the second day. Chuck jokingly asked me if I had killed a guard and was trying to escape. The third day I ran into Tommy, who told me he heard I was a Corrections Officer. It was a little awkward at first, however, we all knew the dividing line between COs (Correction Officers) and inmates.
To their credit never once did any of the guys I knew in the streets ever ask for a special favor or for me to break Departmental rules like bringing contraband into the prison. After I was there a few years Chuck and James had their convictions overturned due to legal technicalities and were released. Tommy served over 25 years before being paroled.
I was assigned to be a vacation relief Officer; filling in for COs when they were on vacation. I worked every job on every shift in the prison; oops I can’t forget our euphemisms, “Correctional Facility.” After the infamous 1971 Attica prison riot the politicians changed the names of prisons and guards to Correctional Facilities and Corrections Officers, however a prison is a prison and a guard is a guard no matter what you try to change the names into. Changing the name of the package doesn’t change what is inside!
It didn’t take long to realize that even though the salary, health, and retirement benefits were very good, working as a prison guard, while exciting, could also be depressing. You come home from work and your wife asks, “How was your day honey?” You reply, “Well let me see, we had three men raped, four fights, and a small racial confrontation in D Block Recreation Yard. And oh yeah, one inmate sliced his own throat with a tuna can cover, while another hung himself. BUT, no one climbed over the razor wire inner fence and scaled the forty-foot high concrete wall, then slipped past the armed guards and escaped. Boy I had a great day at work!”
It is very safe to say that being employed at a prison offers an extremely unique work environment with each day providing new and challenging situations. Some are brutally gruesome, some perverted, some sad, and some downright hilarious. I will share a few which I believe will take you behind some seriously closed doors, and give you a glimpse of what prison life means.
The prison employed two physicians. Doctor Sternberg, a tall skinny Jewish man who looked like Ichabod Crane and spoke with a heavy European accent. He was aggressive and abrupt when examining inmates who signed up to be taken to the prison hospital for sick call each day. One day I was assigned to escort the inmates from A Block to the hospital. When we arrived at the hospital I lined the inmates up single file to be seen by the doctor.
One by one the Doctor Sternberg asked the inmates what was ailing them. As the inmates tried to describe their maladies, he would cut them off and say there was nothing life threatening so they should take an aspirin every four hours and stop wasting his time. The inmates hated Doc Sternberg. As one of the last inmates stepped up to the doctor’s table, the Doc in his heavy accent said “Now vhat da H_ _ _ is vrong vith you?” The inmate replied by saying he had a terrible pain in his ear. Doc grabbed the inmates left ear yanking his head side ways as he told the inmate that he didn’t see anything wrong.
The inmate told him that it was the other ear that had the pain. Doc instantly grabbed the inmate’s left ear again yanking his head around glancing at the ear. Within a second of glancing into the left ear Doc again said that he didn’t see anything wrong “vwat-so-ever.” The inmate indigently complained that the pain was first, very deep, and second, in the other ear! Doc grabbed the right ear this time, and as he pulled the inmate halfway over the table exclaimed that he could see right through to the other side and nothing was wrong. The inmate again insisted that there was a terrible pain deep in his right ear.
At that point Doc, his eyes bulging in disdain yelled at the inmate “Who da H_ _ _ do you think is the doctor here, me or you?” Immediately the inmate curtly replied, “As good as you are, I might as well be the doctor!” Doc went nuts cursing and yelling for me to get the G_ _ D_ _ _ blankety, blank inmate out of his hospital and to lock this son of a B_ _ _ _ up! To lock up an inmate meant to lock him in his cell until he was interviewed by the disciplinary adjustment committee because of an incident. The disciplinary adjustment committee would punish the inmate with more time locked in his cell usually up to two weeks. Actually, I thought that inmate made an astute observation of the doctor’s ability and shouldn’t be locked up at all.
The other prison doctor, Doc Williams was fairly reasonable with the inmates and great to the guards. When we would come into work with hangovers he would brew up a little potion of belladonna, Kaopecktate and a few other drugs which he told us to slowly sip. It worked wonders within two hours we felt like a million bucks ready to finish out the day and start drinking all over again.
I will share another funny incident. I was in charge of the “Coal Gang,” which consisted of 20 inmates who were assigned to shovel coal out of railroad cars brought in to the prison to supply the coal for the power house. The power house provided heat and hot water for the prison. In the summertime I assigned the inmates to mow the grass on the side of the hill that the railroad tracks were on. I always demanded that inmates wear steel covers over their shoes when cutting the grass to protect their feet from the blades of the lawnmower.
One morning as two inmates were mowing the grass on the side of the hill I heard a blood curtailing scream from their vicinity. Sure enough, one of the inmates, who was not wearing foot protectors had just slipped and pulled the mower on top of his left foot. After grabbing a towel from my office I ran to the inmate who was tightly grasping his foot. I told him to let go of his foot so I could wrap it in the towel. However, he refused to release his death grip and kept screaming that all of his toes had been cut off. I called the hospital asking for a nurse to come to the coal yard as soon as possible to treat and transport an inmate who had possibly cut the toes off of his left foot.
While we were waiting for the medical staff to arrive I tried to calm the frantic inmate down fearing he may go into shock. I couldn’t see if he had indeed cut his toes off or not so I tried to get a look at his foot and wrap it with a towel. I finally got him to calm down by telling him that I could see toes and that he probably only lacerated them. The ruse didn’t work, he still wouldn’t let go of his foot so I could see the actual damage. He kept apologizing to me for taking the foot protectors off and begging me not to remove him from the coal gang.
Finally the nurse showed up with a gurney to take him to the hospital. After we placed the inmate on the gurney the nurse told the inmate to loosen his hands so he could administer first aid to his foot. At first the inmate refused saying that he couldn’t feel any toes and that they were probably all gone, however, with the nurse and me coaxing him, he finally loosened his grip. I blocked his view as the nurse carefully removed his hand from around the foot. At that instant one of the other coal gang inmates named Manny leaned over the gurney and announced, “Oh my God they’re all gone.” The inmate freaked out screaming and yelling as he was rushed to the hospital.
I told the other coal gang inmates to hurry to the site of the accident to see if they could find any toes, hoping if any were found they might be reattached. The search came up empty and by then it was time for me to escort them to their cells in B Block to prepare for the noon meal. I then went to C Block to wait for the tear gas to be brought to the observation areas over looking the mess halls. I manned the tear gas booth in A Mess Hall during both the morning and noon meals.
As I sat in the gas booth I received a telephone call from the guard in wall tower # 7 explaining that he had good and bad news. The good news was that he could see the toes, the bad news was that the many cats that inhabit the prison grounds were eating them. After escorting the inmates back to the coal yard after lunch, we immediately ran to the spot where the guard saw the cats having their noon meal on the toes.
After an intense search all that was found was the half eaten big toe. I told the inmates to dispose of the toe by putting it in a bag and burning it in the incinerator. However, one of the Native American inmates took the toe to his cell and that night made a beaded necklace with the big-toe bone on it. The next morning he gave me the necklace which I decided might lift up the spirits of the injured inmate who was now in the prison ward at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo. I talked one of the transport Officers in to taking the necklace to the inmate when he made the daily trip to transport inmates to and from the hospital.
The injured inmate recovered and was discharged form the Erie County Medical Center, returning to the prison within a week. The morning after the he was returned to Attica, I was stopped at the front gate of the prison and ordered to immediately report to the Deputy Superintendent of Security’s office. When I entered his office, Deputy Superintendent Curtis asked me if I knew anything about a necklace containing the big-toe bone of my injured coal gang inmate. It seams that the inmate refused to give up the necklace when he reentered the prison and caused a major scene as the guards tried to take it from him.
Of course I denied any knowledge of such a necklace or how it would have been delivered to the inmate at Erie County Medical Center. Deputy Superintendent Curtis with his raspy voice ordered me to deposit the toe necklace in the inmate’s personal property only to be given to him if and when he was paroled. He then sternly ordered me out of his office. As I headed toward the door Curtis, with a chuckle declared, “Alexander that it was the d_ _ _best thing I’ve ever seen in my 30 years working in prisons.”